Feedback wanted on new doc trailer

Hi folks,

My colleagues and I are currently working on feature-length documentary about the life of Petr Ginz, an extremely talented boy who by 14 had written five novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, and written numerous short stories. Unfortunately he was sent to his death at Auschwitz before fulfilling his early promise as a writer and painter. I have put together a rough trailer and would love some feedback. Thanks!

Cindy

[web.me.com]

P.S. I should mention that the site is also very temporary!

Hey Cindy.

The story...wow. Great subject matter. Your little synopsis alone makes me want to see it.

The trailer...a few points from my point of view:

It needs design help. The font choices do not directly relate to the subject matter IMHO (especially the end title - looks like a cartoon). Instead of simply fading out of the last image of the nazi commander, I would have used a burn film transition...melting his nasty inhumane image away to reveal sweet innocent Petr.

I think the music choice for Petr is too whimsical. I would have kept it a bit more with deep slow strings to give the feeling of more of what an epic tragedy is was for such a beautiful natural talent to be snuffed out at such a young age by such EVIL.

The animation at the end is too long (almost half the trailer). I got totally pulled out of why I was watching the trailer in the first place. That could be trimmed way down.

Spend more time on the trailer. You have to make people FEEL the tragedy. I get choked up looking at the drawings.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Thank you so much for the prompt reply. Yeah, I too worry about my font choice. Any suggestions on a substitute type? As for Petr's music, I wanted to set a whimsical tone to offset the horrors around him. We very much want this to be told from the imaginative perspective of a child. However, I do realize that this is tricky territory to navigate.

I am working on a longer version of this that hopefully will flesh out the story a bit more. We just returned from Terezin and now have some contemporary imagery of the camp.

Again, thanks so much for your valuable input.

I agree with Joe -- don't like the fonts. Here, simple would have worked better than the very obnoxious fonts in the beginning, and the comic font at the end is very cheesy.

More importantly for me, though, you have to tighten this up. It's a trailer, you have to suggest your themes and content. And looking at the trailer, I didn't feel like it hooked me into wanting to see the whole thing. I think it's because you showed me so many drawings, but didn't get across the character. And too much reliance on music, and it's mixed too loud. Music plus images equals tone, not content, and tone doesn't complete a trailer. You gotta get some narrative muscle in there, and move things much faster.


www.derekmok.com

I would echo Joe and Derek's points and add that if you had some more vox-pop type clips (short snippets of interview or sync) from the documentary, that might help it be a bit more emotive.

For example we only need to see his sister in shot fairly briefly then you can run her comments under footage to cut down on time.

You can overlay footage before we see her and then cover any last thoughts with relevant footage.

This would also give you the chance to cut her interview a little tighter.

You could then bring in any nice audio clips under the other parts with going back to see her in vision.

I liked the music and I think with more snippets of interview it might work nicely.

Yes the animation is too long for trailer purposes but it looks great. Apart from the text at the end - I would delete that font from your system! Joke... but don't use it. A consistency of design and style throughout will tie the piece together better.

Maybe the animation could be the basis of an entire trailer? A vehicle to deliver the trailer elements? If it started out in a really "nice" boys imagination then took us into the peril of the Third Reich using a dramatic change of music then back out the other side with a reprise of uplifting optimism and his accomplishments with a final comment or quote.



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

...oh and I'd also make it Widescreen!!! Do away with the 4:3 it feels so 1980s



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Thanks folks. I will have a brief burial ceremony for my fonts. I promise. Right now the reason I do not have more VO clips is because Chava (Petr's sister) is all we have at this point. I will certainly work on shortening the animation, getting it formatted properly, (it was supposed to be a widescreen output, so I screwed up somewhere) and fleshing out the story.

Chill
I couldn't get your trailer to play, but I read the synopsis. What a brilliant story to choose. I have written down the name Petr Ginz for further research. I would love to see more of your work. Good job!
Marilyn
Didigital copying & dvd duplicator

Just saw it. I totally echo Derek, Joe and Ben's views. You have immensely powerful subject matter here and you haven't tapped into it sufficiently.

You do have a basic structure to the trailer, just that it's extremely simple and needs a lot more work. Currently I'm seeing this: part 1- intro on Nazis; part 2- intro to Petr and showcase some his works, interview with sister; Part 3- an animation with a rocket.

Notice that this isn't really a story. It's just a compilation of parts. You need a story here (which you have in your opening page, just that it's not in the video)- why should we be interested in this boy? What is it about his character? His personality? What is so special and intriguing about his works?

Opening is okay, but a little too straightforward, the intertitles border on being cliche.

The overall design needs a lot more work. The transition between the Nazi officer to the boy is definitely wrong. You changed the music, and did a fade out/fade in. This creates separation between the two subjects when in fact, you need to play up the juxtaposition between the officer and the boy.

Don't really think the book flipping effect works at all. It's too cliche. Floating across his drawings would be a nicer idea- kind of like getting the audience to explore his mind/imagination.

I completely lost the plot at the ending animation. It's too long, and I haven't an idea what it is about. You need to either play it in or drop it.

More work on the fonts. The opening fonts stick out too much, the end font doesn't tie in with the rest of the video, the name of the interviewee is in white Helvetica bold with a black drop shadow with no background and both lines are of the same size? That's actually what I use for placeholders when I'm doing offlines. You need to tie in the video with a good design.



www.strypesinpost.com

I got that the red spaceship was Petr's escape - his imagination keeping him alive through the horrors of his reality, but I agree with the others. Way too long. In fact I think you could reduce it to just three or four shots to tell this part of the story. And yeah, more interviews needed when you get them. The story itself looks really solid.